Was Riley Cooper approached about video before it was released?

By John Breech | CBSSports.com

August 4, 2013 3:52 PM ET

Riley Cooper didn't know a video of him using a racial slur existed. (USATSI)

One of the questions that has remained unanswered in the whole Riley Cooper incident is: Did Cooper know about the existence of the video? And if so, how long did he know about it before the video went public? And if he knew about the video, was there an attempt at blackmail?

Crossingbroad.com, the website that released the video of Cooper using a racial slur at a Kenny Chesney concert in June, said in an Aug. 3 post that only a small group of people knew about the video before it was released on July 31 and some of those people reached out to Cooper on Twitter.

Crossingbroad.com points out that the group of friends who were originally in possession of the video may have reached out to Cooper to 'blackmail' him or extort him. That theory now makes some sense, because the Eagles released a statement on Sunday mentioning that they got NFL security involved.

"Riley Cooper made us aware of the tweets when the video became public," the statement said. "He told us that he did not know about the video. He informed us he blocked the tweets because he did not know the person nor understand the context of what that person was threatening. We promptly alerted NFL Security. This information potentially speaks to a legal issue that is a matter between Riley and the authorities. Our focus has been on Riley's words and actions."

Crossingbroad.com bought the video for $150. According to Crossingbroad.com, the group that sold the video to them approached Cooper on Twitter before selling it to the website.

Cooper blocked two people on Twitter that asked about the video. When you block someone on Twitter, you can no longer look at their tweets or send them a tweet.

As you can see in the Eagles statement, Cooper claims he blocked the two Twitter users because he claims he had no idea what video they were talking about or what context the tweets were sent in.